For those of you who have been concerned about my dad, I am writing to update you on his condition and to ask for your help again. After visiting my dad in prison, I have observed this: They do not feed him nearly enough. He has no privacy. He works as a janitor everyday from 7-4. He is allowed few personal belongings, and he lives with real criminals (duh). However, despite the negative conditions he is under, his spirit remains positive, and he retains his hope in coming justice.

Dana Siegelman's diary :: :: My goal in writing this letter is to further incite your frustration toward our current political state. Politics has adopted the Mafia's modus operandi. It thrives on power, money, and loyalty (i.e. being loyal to one's own, versus the client), and aborting those who refuse to comply. Contrarily, we have a judiciary committee in the House of Representatives that cares and wants partisan prosecution to end. The conspirators, (for this is what they truly are), have been doing everything they can to crush the investigation in Congress before it reveals the truth. Our role is to petition this committee to persevere and fight for justice.

Having my dad in prison has sharply awakened me to the many brutalities alive in this world. For years I tried to hide from politics and salvage my naivete. This was a futile attempt. Hiding from and denying the injustices served to our people and the world is anything but empowering. We have the ability to face these problems and do something productive to stop them. Please join me in encouraging this committee to fight for the truth, to seek justice with all its power, and to rekindle the hope that we ought to have in our government.

With all my heart I thank you for your incredible help, prayers, and love. Sincerely, Dana Siegelman

The Sunday Birmingham News carried an extensive interview with Louis Franklin, the Acting U.S. Attorney in the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. The gist of it is that the DOJ types in Washington weren't gung ho to pursue the case against Siegelman at all -- it was the prosecutors in Montgomery who were hot to take the case to court. Mr. Franklin talks about the attorney assigned to the case by Washington, John W. Scott, leaving the distinct impression that Scott dragged his feet on the prosecution, and finally bowed out because he didn't think the case was sound.

This is an important line of spin for the Republicans and the DOJ because they need to refute the growing suspicion that politicos in Washington (Rove & company) were really controlling the Siegelman prosecution. Scott Horton of Harper's has been tracking Louis Franklin's statements on the Siegelman case, and I suggest you read his latest before accepting the "Montgomery prosecutors were in control" story.

Of course, the Birmingham News didn't try very hard wasn't able to reach Mr. Scott to get his side of the story, but it probably doesn't matter too much. The really interesting bit of Franklin's statement was the part about timing, buried at the very end of the article. At the Judiciary Committee hearing last week Dr. Donald Shields and former Attorney General Thornburgh pointed out that many of the investigations and indictments being questioned seem to have been timed to coincide with an election cycle. No doubt about it, Don Siegelman's indictment and trial couldn't have come at a worse time to kill his hopes of regaining the Governor's office.

If you lived in Alabama at the time, you'll recall that Siegelman and his legal team were pushing to get this investigation wrapped up, over and done with, well before election season. After all, he was planning to run for governor in 2006 and needed to have his name cleared by mid 2005 to maintain a viable candidacy. That didn't happen. Why not?

Louis Franklin told the Birmingham News that the folks he was dealing with in Washington were slowing the investigation. At the time, the Public Integrity division was run by Noel Hillman. ...

Rove and the prosecutor need to spend some time behind bars equal to tentimes the amount of time Siegelman has spent there. Prosecution for purelypolitical reasons needs to be up there with treason on the "length ofsentence" scale.

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